iF: How does the writing process on a show like HEROES with so many different characters work?

LOEB: The way our show is run is very different than any show I’ve ever been on. It came out of necessity; we were picked up a year ago around this time and we had to start shooting in the middle of July. In order to do a show that is this complicated we needed to have three or four scripts in the can. When you gang write a script on a show, you do it generally because you are in trouble. So, you doll out who does act one, and act two, and three and hopefully when you get it all back together again it will all match. The gift of this show was that the character’s stories particularly in the beginning were very modular; so that you could write all of Claire’s story for the entire first three episodes and never bump into anybody else. That’s a tremendous gift to sit down and realize that your responsibility for this episode is six to eight pages. When you multiply that by six or eight people, you can turn a script around within a week. It was a grand experiment and it should’ve blown up in our faces and instead it turned out to be damn good! I think that speaks volumes about the process we go through in terms of breaking the story and following an outline that we were all involved in.
Secondly, we were al involved in every step of the writing process up until the point where the person who is credited is given all of the elements and then has to make it work. Sometimes that means literally, like the meeting I just walked out of, where one of the characters’ story elements wasn’t working so well for that episode and we pulled it out and re-jiggered it as something completely different. Again, the gift of that is that it is only six to eight pages; it’s not like you are restructuring the entire story.
Certainly, when I was on SMALLVILLE you could never do that because the main story was the story. On LOST, all the stories were pretty much geared around the person in the flashback. Often on LOST we broke stories around the person in the past and then broke the island story; in order to make those two things match up with one another. This is much more of a group concept and absolutely we found there were characters that people liked writing and gravitated to and once the script is finished nothing really goes to production without Tim going through and putting in his own particular style on top of it. But, it really enabled the writers to take up an authorship in every episode and what you didn’t have was a sense of preciousness about whatever you were working on. You simply did the best you could, and I think it’s paid off enormously. I don’t know if it would work on any other show, but it happens to work on our show because we have such an ensemble cast and that our casts don’t often meet each other.

CS: Do you know if your character might return to "Heroes" next season?
Eccleston: We haven't spoken about that yet. I'd certainly be open to it. I get the feeling that they'd be open to it, but I think we all feel that he made a good impact, and in a sense, it's a decision whether to leave it at that because it just adds to the fabric of their series. I think there's got to be something really meaty for him to do for me to go back, but I'd certainly like to. I was made very welcome by that crew and that cast. Being a Brit on that show, I've never been offered so many cups of tea in my life. But you do, it's like you get lots of attention because you're different.

Everybody needs a hero, and everybody in television wants the next Heroes.

TV is infamously imitative and Heroes was the just-concluded season's buzz rookie. Ergo, about one in four of the 29 new series unveiled last month by the broadcast networks will feature characters with superhuman powers or some paranormal trait. To put this into perspective, there will be more Heroes knockoffs than new sitcoms, the genre that until recently has been the backbone of episodic television.

Dania Ramirez, who played Callisto in X-Men: The Last Stand and has a recurring role on "The Sopranos," has been added as a regular on the NBC's hit series "Heroes." The show returns for a second season in the fall.

Ramirez will play Maya, a new hero whose powers are being kept under wraps.

"Heroes" extends Ramirez's relationship with NBC. This past development season, she co-starred in the network's drama pilot "Fort Pit."

Maya is one of four to five new characters expected to be added to "Heroes" next season, but her character might be the only regular one. The other roles, most of which are said to have international flavor, include a sexy boyfriend for Claire (Hayden Panettiere), a 28-year-old black mother, a surrogate for Niki's (Ali Larter) son and an Irish mobster

You may recall my rant about character blogs done poorly. If you don't the quick recap is that it's hard to have an effective "character blog" (a blog created around a fictional character) when the blog has constant reminders that this character is completely fictional. TV show characters live in a world that's not hosted on CBS.com, for instance.

Since that post I've been on the lookout for a great character blog and Web sites that I could share as an example of how to do it right. I found two great support efforts for this season's hit show "Heroes", and both focus on lesser discussed aspects of show.

Of the two, my significant favorite is the VotePetrelli.com site. This site literally could have been created for any candidate running for office this year. (Which is a sad reflection on Web sites for political candidates, but I digress)

Let's see how this site stacks up against my Rules for Character Blogs & Sites:

Keep it right - this blog is certainly the exact right concept for a fictional political candidate.

Use what you have - this project is fun because it fits into the universe, but doesn't focus on the more obvious elements of the show. This helps to extend the show "world" much further.

Make it real - although not as applicable on a non-blog site, it's still interesting to see that the privacy policy says nothing about NBC and instead references only VotePetrelli.com. I actually emailed the webmaster with an in-character note to see what kind of response I'll get back.

Connect the dots - I'm not sure if this has been advertised elsewhere. Anyone else seen anything about it? (I read about it in Wired)

Extend the illusion - the illusion on this one is pretty deep. Zero branding, zero reference to NBC, and absolute synchronization to the show's on-screen character.
The second site focuses on the fictional Yamagato Fellowship but isn't as tight. Sadly there's far too many "coming soon" references in the content for this to be considered great, but it's certainly a solid effort.

Great work, NBC!

Speaking in an interview with Comic Book Resources, series creator Tim Kring discussed the significance of a few events in the season finale of the show as well as shed some light on the first "Heroes" spinoff project.

"We just have branched into a new spinoff, ‘Origins,’ that's really like a whole new kind of animal," Kring said in the interview. "Hopefully that will be something that takes off and will allow us to broaden the franchise a bit. So, I'm still here and plan to stay here."

According to Kring, the spinoff project has been given a six-episode pickup by NBC and will be made up of standalone episodes which focus on characters who have yet to be introduced into the main "Heroes" show. But the real difference about this show is it will have a direct impact on what people see on "Heroes" in Season 2, he said. Apparently, viewers will have the option to decide which "Origins" character makes the jump to "Heroes."

Although Kring will find his talents in a little bit more demand with the spinoff series, he insists that it will in no way impact the quality of "Heroes" and he has no plans to pick up his sandbox toys and run anytime soon.

"There's a true collaborative spirit on ‘Heroes,’" Kring explained. "I realized very early on the only way to mount a show that was this gargantuan and this complicated was to get into the row boat with like-minded and creative people and all try to row in the same direction. So, I've surrounded myself with so many brilliant writers and creative directors. Real visionaries. A lot of my show running style is to delegate quite a bit and I really feel like there is a kind of collective brain that starts to form when you give up the reigns a little bit."

The first season of the series, which has been called "Genesis," was designed specifically to lead up to the events of "How To Stop An Exploding Man." However due to the complicated nature of the seasonal arc the episode was incredibly challenging to write.

"The final episode was so pre-determined by the events that came before it that writing it was a very complicated thing," Kring said. "You were dragging so much story behind you that you had very little wiggle room as to what people could say and how they could say it and what their attitudes were. It was all pre-determined. We looked at the last three episodes as kind of one big movie starting with episode 21, following our departure episode where we went five years in to the future. The final three episodes really are just one big episode."

Aside from bringing all of the seasonal arc together into a neat bundle, what Kring aimed to do with the last episode is take the series back to the beginning. Particularly, concerning the connection between Sylar and the common cockroach.

"It's talked about in the very beginning of the pilot. One of the lines was that a cockroach could remain alive headless for weeks at a time, which a cockroach can do - a fact I always found amazing!" Kring said with a laugh. "So, this idea that we just watched this guy die and clearly somehow dragged himself into a manhole is exactly the signal that perhaps this character is still alive."

To read more of CBR's interview with Kring, check out the entire Q&A by clicking here.